The invention relates in general to conveyors and particularly to a new and useful driver for chain conveyors with driver arms and guide shoes attached at the end on the driver arms, which are detachably secured on the driver arms by means of vertical connecting elements passing through the driver arms, and which are guided in angle sections of the conveyor trough.
By chain conveyors the framework of the invention single-chain conveyors, as well as doublechain conveyors and outer chain conveyors are included.
In conventional chain conveyors, the drivers scraping on the trough bottom and in the angle sections are subject to considerable wear and must therefore be frequently replaced. For this reason drivers have already been developed which carry, at the end, plastic caps and guide shoes which can be attached on the driver arms and be replaced. The plastic caps are secured detachably, but without play, on the driver arms by means of tongue and groove joints, vertical bores through the tongue and groove joints, and adapter sleeves or dowel pins. Such drivers; as well as conventional embodiments where the guide shoes are not replaceable, but are integral with the driver arms; can only be inserted in one direction of motion if we work with the scrape angles formed by the driver arms and the guide shoes. Since the driver arms and the guide shoes are generally asymmetrical, the scraping or conveying power is considerably reduced during the return of the drivers. But return is frequently required, e.g. when cutting up or down between end and head zones. Beyond that, the known drivers are not free of drawbacks either insofar as they only have a constant scrape angle. The same drawbacks also appear with regard to the rear free cutting angle.